The Moon Room
by tbka
Summary: When Kakashi the shinobi becomes entangled with Kakashi the man the line between past and present, reality and terror, can become muddled together and sometimes the way out of a sick mind is not found by following the light but by searching through the terror the darkness can hide.
1. Prologue

**The Moon Room**

**Author's Note: **This story takes place between Naruto and Naruto Shippuden. It's Kakashi-centric and I don't own anything but my own twisted ideas so please don't sue me. Really, trust me, it's just not worth it as I own nothing anyone else would want.

* * *

**Prologue:**

The air was still with a chill in it that dug deep into your bones and took refuge there; leaving both the body and the mind sluggish and unresponsive. In the best of conditions a shinobi would have a hard time keeping his body moving and his mind alert but in the worst of conditions this weather could kill if it so chose to. Unfortunately for Kakashi he had been in considerably better condition in the past than he currently was now but he would not stop for he knew any time spent resting could potentially mean his death. He still had far more to make up for to be able to let himself succumb to the promise of freedom that death would bring with it.

So he trudged on. Feet dragged in the muddy ground from the previous day's rainfall. He tripped more times than he felt he should have and each time it grew increasingly harder for him to catch himself as his left arm hung dislocated, burnt and useless at his side. If he ended up being required too he was sure that he would be able to use it but for the time being he was content to let it rest, limp, at his side as he cut a ragged path through thick underbrush. A couple days ago he had still had the strength to travel through the trees but now lack of food, exhaustion, and the frigid cold of nearby winter had sucked his strength from him. If it was not for his determination and the Will of Fire that burned within him he would have laid down on the cold forest floor days earlier and let the endless sleep overtake him.

A headache, situated right behind his Sharingan eye, throbbed continuously; growing in strength with each passing minute. He would rub at that eye every so often, finding that the pressure of his fingers against the stolen eye relieved the headache for at least a moment or two.

"Stolen eye?" he muttered, chastising himself for his own choice of words. He found his thoughts distracted of late and unfocused. Flying across his mind in jumbled messes that were difficult for him to process and act on. He was unsure if this was due to his exhaustion and the cold or something much more sinister hiding just beneath the surface. However, he had not the time nor the energy to think too much on the matter and he knew he had to stay focused on moving forward.

Time passed by but he paid little heed to it. He began to talk in quiet whispers to himself without realizing it as the cold penetrated his body and mind even more. His left side ached, from his ribs down to his hip and he couldn't seem to recall why. As the minutes turned to hours and the hours into days he began to come, although slowly, to the realization that he did not think he would make it back to Konoha.

He began to doubt that he would see his home ever again. As the thoughts of his comrades and his friends that remained there crossed through his mind he began to let the despair drag him deeper into the abyss and deeper into the cold that threatened his life. Yet still he walked though his path was now less than direct and barely brought him closer to his destination. He noticed a knot in the pit of his stomach that began to grow to a level that was difficult for him to ignore. If he had been more aware at the time he would have realized that it was simply hunger that had taken residence there, in the bottom of his stomach, and refused to leave until it was heard and dealt with but Kakashi had no strength to deal with such minute details as hunger. So he ignored it, along with the rest of his injuries, the best as he could and kept walking.

As the sun began to rise on whatever day it might have been he froze as the sound of something that was not nature reached his ears. As he raised his eyes from the ground and focused on something other than just walking he realized, for the first time, how his ears seemed to be dominated by the sound of his heartbeat and his vision was blurred and hazy. He cursed himself for his drop in defenses but he knew why he had slipped up. As he stood there, deep within the heart of the forest and far from any path a civilian may travel, he took stock of his own physical health for the first time in a very, very long time and realized how bad off it was. If the sound he had heard was in fact an enemy as he feared it was then he was as good as dead. His body was surviving on nothing but his own determination not to die and any true physical exertion would be the end of his miserable existence. Simply walking was a physical exertion that his body had, so far, barely been able to keep up with. A fight in his condition now was a death sentence so he did the only thing he could think to do.

He did nothing, knowing full well that the enemy had most likely already spotted him so hiding would be of no help, and he closed his eyes for a moment or two. He knew that this was his end.

He had failed. A small sighed escaped his mouth as he raised his right hand and shifted his hitai-ate up as he opened his mismatched eyes to greet his enemy. His Sharingan burned a duller red than normal and if one were to look at it closely they would see that it was fading, ever so slightly, from red to its inactivated black state and back to red and so forth. It was a clear sign as to how close to death he was and he knew, no matter who he ended up fighting, that in mere minutes he would be dead. Determination and the Will of Fire can only keep someone alive for so long and Kakashi, unfortunately, had long pushed his body past its breaking point and there was no more left for him to rely on. This was it, this was the end, and he knew he had to come to terms with that now because he would soon have no more time left to dwell on any of it anymore.

But as the person who stood before him became discernable through his blurred vision and as his sluggish mind was finally able to place a name to his attacker's face he let a small smile appear, hidden beneath his mask, and closed his Sharingan eye as he realized he would not need it. Not today, not for this fight.

"Neji," he began. His voice was rough and his laboured breathing cut through his words and made it difficult for him to speak. "This is a surprise. Am I closer to home than I thought?"

Neji raised his eyebrows slightly in surprise for he had never heard Kakashi call Konoha _home _before. His thoughts were quickly distracted to other matters as the first thing Neji took any notice of was the blood that had dried under the Sharingan eye and stained the Copy Nin's face in a single, thick path until it reached the absorbing fabric of the black mask that always covered the Jounin's face. As he activated his Byakugan his eyes widened in both concern and a small twinge of fear. Kakashi's chakra was nearly impossible to discern and as he took stock of the Jounin standing before him he began to realize how close to death the man was.

"How long have you been out here?" Neji asked, trying to determine how long the cold and the rain had been affecting Kakashi. His eyes were drawn down to Kakashi's left side as he waited for a response and he felt his heart skip a beat as he saw how dark the torn clothing of Kakashi's shirt was, how dark it was due to the blood that had stained it.

"I… I do not know," Kakashi finally answered, pulling Neji out from his thoughts, "time has… become hard to follow lately."

"Konoha is still nearly a three weeks' worth of travel from here, can you–" Neji's words were cut short as the man before him, the great Copy Nin Kakashi, simply collapsed.

Neji was at his side before the Jounin even hit the ground and caught him gracefully, lowering him to the ground but letting Kakashi's head rest on his own lap as he kneeled on the damp foliage. It took him only a moment or two to see the infection that had settled underneath poorly healing scabs down both Kakashi's entire left arm and left side. The wound to his side was deep but had clotted long ago although the dirt and the infection that had been trapped in there was clearly what was causing the heat that Neji felt radiating from Kakashi's body as he held him. But despite the heat Kakashi's breath was chillingly cold and as Neji stood up, cradling the now unconscious Kakashi in his arms, he noticed how little the man weighed and how pale his skin was but it was the blue-tinge that laid just underneath the skin tone that worried Neji even more so than the infection. Infection, wounds, and burns could all be healed by a skilled medic-nin but hyperthermia was something that could kill in a moment – especially when the affected shinobi had slipped into unconsciousness.

As Neji leapt into action he let his mind ponder over the man he held as he jumped through the trees in search of the rest of his team. The more he thought over all he had come to know over the last few minutes he figured that Kakashi had been wondering aimlessly through this thick forest for at least a week, if not even longer. The fact that he was still alive was a testament to his determination to simply survive. He was sure Kakashi had pushed his body past the point of death long ago and it was not until he had come into contact with someone that he knew and could trust did his mind finally let him stop his will to survive and to instead just rest – as he so clearly needed.

Neji's thoughts were cut short as he spotted his team through the treetops and pushed himself to move even faster to reach them and as he came to their side he quickly got ahead of them and dropped down to the ground knowing that they would've spotted him and followed his lead to the forest floor. As soon as his two other team members and his sensei stood before him Neji saw the shock that registered in their faces. Without a word he turned his attention to Gai and handed the still form of Kakashi to him. As Gai looked at his weakened and injured eternal rival in his arms he closed his eyes for just a brief moment as he registered the awful truth that even though they were lucky enough to find Kakashi when they did there was still no guarantee that they could return him to Konoha in time to save his life.

"I believe that our current mission will have to be delayed." Gai spoke with a solemn tone and a small hint of fear. "Our main concern is returning Kakashi to Konoha as quickly as possible. Let's head out!"

With those words the four shinobi, with their unconscious comrade, took to the treetops again but this time they were retracing their steps and moving at a much faster pace than before. Urgency pushed them as no one wanted to watch the famed Hatake Kakashi die within their care.


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One:**

The first thing that came to his mind was how remarkably cold he was. The second thing that came to his mind was where in the world was he and where was the rest of his team? A panic he could not control sat heavy in his chest, pulling at his heart, and he swallowed back the lump in his throat. He felt like he was moving but knew it was not himself that was causing the action.

_I'm being carried. _The thought struck Kakashi hard and fast and he immediately feared the worst. He was being carried by an enemy, he was sure of it, and he had to find a way to get free of his captors as soon as he could. He tried to move but his body was heavy and his blood felt like it had been replaced with mud as it sloshed ever-so-slowly through his body, his heart barely beating and barely keeping him alive.

So he waited. He stayed as still as he could so as not to alert the person carrying him that he was awake and bade his time. He focused on breathing and as the time passed the bitter cold that had settled in his bones and muscles seemed to fade into a complete sense of numbness. Taking deep breaths hurt but he did not know why and his whole left side began to register a dull ache that throbbed in time to his slow heartbeat. Eventually he realized that he had to act quickly or else his body would soon slip back into unconsciousness and his chance for freedom would be lost to him. He knew that he was unlikely to succeed in escaping in the condition he was in but he would rather try and be killed then let himself be taken captive.

He struck out at the same time he opened his eyes and his fist met chin with ease. The man carrying him had clearly no idea that Kakashi was awake and was so shocked he missed the tree branch he had been aiming for and let Kakashi drop from his arms as he was forced to reach out to grab a hold of the nearest branch he could to break his fall. Kakashi, however, was not so lucky.

The injured shinobi had not the strength nor the reflexes to stop his fall and all he was able to manage was to land on the forest floor with an awkward roll that barely did anything to break his landing. His legs and back cried out with the force of his fall and the roll he attempted pulled painfully at the shoulder he didn't realize was dislocated until that exact moment. He had no choice but to stay crouched on the forest floor, right hand on the ground and supporting his weight, as he tried to breathe and collect both his strength and his focus. He kept his eyes downcast and stared at his hand but no matter how hard he tried he could not stop his vision from swimming and he could not dull the sound of his heart beating in his ears.

He felt the presence of four shinobi suddenly landing in front of him and though he knew he needed to face them he could not get his body to move to his mind's commands. If he was one to show emotions he would've cursed himself and his weakened state but he instead stayed quiet and tried desperately to still his racing thoughts. Where was he? Who was he with? What had happened? Why was he so injured? _What is going on and where the fuck am I?_

"Kakashi-san?"

Kakashi's head snapped up at the sound of his name and he almost growled at the person before him. Instead he choose to ask, "What do you want from me?" but his voice was rough and choked off by the lack of air he seemed able to breathe in and the sudden movement of his head sent his visions swimming. His Sharingan began to ache with the beginnings of a headache that he knew would not leave him any time soon.

"Kakashi, it's me," the shinobi, the one who had been carrying the Copy Nin, replied, "it's Gai. Don't you remember me?"

Kakashi did not reply. Instead he narrowed his eyes and despite his protesting body he forced himself to slowly stand up. The two shinobi stood, staring each other down, for a moment that seemed to last forever. Gai willing Kakashi to recognize him and Kakashi being completely blind to the memories of this man who claimed to know him.

"Where did you take Rin?"

Gai's eyes widened at Kakashi's question and for a brief moment he closed his eyes to try and find an answer for Kakashi that would satisfy him. He settled on looking his eternal rival directly in the eyes and saying, "You have a fever Kakashi, the wound on your side is severely infected and now torn open again from your fall. You're twenty-seven years old, Rin died many years ago. The fever is affecting your mind and you need to trust us. We're trying to take you back to Konoha to get you the medical help you need."

Silence. Kakashi stared at Gai and barely even registered the three younger shinobi that were also there. Eventually the Copy Nin turned his gaze down to his own body and saw that the wound that spread across the left side of his body had indeed ripped itself open and was now leaking both blood and infection down the side of his body and soaking into his torn clothing. He found it odd that he could not register the feeling of the blood on his skin but ignored that fact and brought his attention back up to the shinobi standing before him.

"You lie," he snarled out and before Gai could even register what was happening Kakashi was right in front of him, his right hand surrounded by lightening chakra and reaching out towards Gai's chest but the taijustu master's reactions were quicker than his mind and he jump backwards before landing quickly and pushing himself up to partially jump over Kakashi using the Copy Nin's own extended arm as leverage. Before Kakashi knew what had occurred Gai was behind him with a kunai at his neck and his hand clamped tightly over Kakashi's right forearm to keep the Chidori from striking anyone at all.

"Stop this," Gai whispered, his voice harsh with both anger and desperation, "You are in no condition to fight and you are going to kill yourself!"

"I'd rather die than allow myself to be taken captive."

"If you do not remember us then at least look to our hitai-tai," Neji spoke up and though his voice was calm it was clear that he was concerned, whether it was for Kakashi's safety or his own team's safety could not be said. "We all wear the symbol of Konoha, we are comrades trying to help you."

"Neji is right," Gai said but he made no attempt to move or to relinquish his hold on Kakashi as the Chidori still chattered away in the Copy Nin's right hand. "Please Kakashi, you are my eternal rival but I will not hesitate to kill you to protect my team."

_Kill. Protect my team. _Those words bounced around Kakashi's mind on repeat and as they did his adrenaline and strength faded away from him. The Chidori dissipated into thin air and the world around him began to spin and twist. A feeling of guilt bubbled up inside of him and took up residence in his chest, suffocating his heart. He let out a strangled sob before the world turned black and all his senses left him except for the return of that excruciating feeling of numbing cold. Then, then there seemed to be nothing at all except for the stifling loneliness that always came to him when the unconscious world wrapped itself around his mind.

* * *

He saw a hand. A hand stained in blood, moonlight shining on it like a spotlight. Darkness surrounded everything else. He could focus only on the hand, watching the blood drip slowly from it. Listening to the sound of blood striking the floor.

One drop. Two drop. Three. Four. Five. Six…

He would've kept counting had he not been distracted by the realization that the hand he was looking at was actually his own, connected to his very own arm and his very own body. The blood was not his. He willed himself to raise his other hand to find it covered in someone else's blood as well.

It was becoming harder and harder to breathe the more the seconds ticked by. He closed his eyes for a brief moment only to open them to find himself standing ankle high in a slow moving river. The water was cold, freezing even, and a thin layer of ice covered the edges of the river but not the center.

The river was an odd colour. For some reason he could not name the colour but he knew, instinctively, that it was not the colour it should be. Moonlight shined down on him, making it hard to see anything outside the circle of light that surrounded him.

_Blood._

The river was red. The river was blood. He looked down to see the blood-water swirling around his ankles, thick and sticky and soaking into his pants. He looked to the river's edge to see the ice slowly creeping out towards the center, towards him. He thought he should move but found that he had little energy to do such a thing. Instead he watched the ice crawl its way slowly towards him until it wrapped itself around his ankles. Froze him into the river. Froze him into the blood.

His hand became surrounded by lightning and he cut through the ice with ease but as he did something heavy settled in his chest, began to suffocate his heart. He watched the ice crack around him and the cracks splintered off into all different directions. The ice groaned and creaked with the force of the chakra sent through it before splintering apart into a million tiny pieces that became caught in a sudden violent swirl of wind that brought them spinning around Kakashi.

As he looked at the shattered pieces of ice flying around him he saw faces in each one. They flew past him so fast he couldn't be certain if he was imagining the faces or not. There became sounds of cries at the edge of his senses and those sounds seemed to echo louder in his mind, making it impossible for him to focus on anything else. There were screams, of both pain and grief, and it took a moment for Kakashi to realize that the screams were his own.

He heard a voice but it wasn't like the previous voices he had heard. This voice wasn't crying out in grief or physical pain or anything of the sort. This voice was calm, soothing, a whisper of good in a nightmare of terror and pain. He latched on to it, hoping against hope that it was not a trick. It seemed familiar, familiar and calm and yet touched with a small sense of fear. This voice seemed real, coloured by the tones and pitches of a person situated at the far side of his mind, a person situated in reality which is a place that Kakashi was beginning to realize that he was _not_ in.

He closed his eyes not only to block out the faces he saw on the fragmented ice still swirling around him but also to better help himself concentrate on that voice. There was something in that voice that he needed but he didn't know what that thing was, he couldn't describe it. Somehow he just knew that his escape from this horrible place hinged entirely on listening to that voice.

"Kakashi, can you hear me?"

The Copy-Nin snapped his eyes opened to be met with a face right near his. It was a person he could not name but the face was familiar, was safe, he knew that much. He took in a shuddering breath only to feel his ribs grind against each other and a sharp yet heavy pain settled in the bones in his chest. He closed his eyes again, focused on trying only to inhale and exhale.

"Kakashi?"

"Shut-up," Kakashi spat out, "you're giving me a headache."

"Do you know who I am?"

Kakashi muttered, "A friend," in response, his eyes still closed as he tried to figure out where he was.

There was an audible sigh of relief from the man that had the voice that had dragged Kakashi from the depths of his unconscious mind. "Do you know my name?"

Kakashi tried to find the name but such a simple piece of information had been lost in the fevered mess that his mind had become. He shook his head in response but the movement jarred something lose, a memory, and he heard those voices again. They were faint but they were there, crying out for him to save them. Dragging him back into the depths of unconsciousness and the black swallowed him up, caged him in his own tortured mind.

The man from the outside world, from reality, tried once again to bring Kakashi back but his voice was drowned out from the Copy-Nin's world by voices of all his past failures that haunted him. The other man took a moment to take Kakashi's pulse and was relieved to find that he had returned to a regular, though slow, rhythm.

"Gai?"

The other man looked up at Lee and tried his best to smile but it was unconvincing. They had all seen the terror that had gripped the shinobi they were trying to save and they all knew that the unconscious nightmare was a sign that the fever from Kakashi's infected wounds was beginning to affect his mind. It was not a promising sign.

"We must start moving again," Gai stated as he careful picked Kakashi up. He had hoped to stop and rest for at least enough time to allow everyone a meal and a few hours of sleep but that was no longer an option. "We must get Kakashi into Tsunade's care as quick as possible."

Gai kept his voice as devoid of emotion as he possible could. It was bad sign, for him to see a need to strip all feeling from his words could mean nothing other than that his emotions were far too strong for him to be able to focus on the task at hand. He had no choice but to swallow the lump of fear in his throat and take a page out of Kakashi's own book – he had to lock the feelings away and deal with them once he had the reason they were there at all taken care of.

As he took to the trees Gai held Kakashi in a way so that their chests pressed tight against each other. He wanted to be able to feel the Copy-Nin's heartbeat at all times in hopes that its constant presence would somehow keep his greatest fear from becoming a bitter reality. He convinced himself that if he could feel that heartbeat then there was no way that Kakashi could die in his arms.

It was the only lie that he could tell himself to keep alive that small flicker of hope that they were not too late in finding Kakashi; that somehow they would be granted enough time to be able to save his eternal rival.

* * *

_Am I dead? _It wasn't the first time his mind had turned to that thought as the darkness around him began to dissipate. However, the smell of antiseptic and the ever-constant sounds of monitor machines steadily beeping away weaved their way into his waking mind and he knew exactly where he was.

In the hospital.

_I'm alive and in the hospital_. He let his muscles relax as soon as he realized that he was not in any immediate danger. He took in a few slow, deep breaths as he mentally went over every part of his physical body. He could move his toes and fingers so he knew he was not paralysed in any way. The left side of his rib caged seemed to protest slightly as he breathed signalling at least a few broken ribs that were still on the mend. His left arm was itchy, and held a strange burning sensation just beneath the skin, but he could not figure out why.

_I can't remember! _The realization flashed across his mind and settled, with a depressive thud, in the center of his chest. It caused a certain level of panic to rise up through the pit of his stomach and it threatened to choke the air out of his lungs but he forced the feeling down, bottled it up and put it away on a high shelf somewhere in his mind to be dealt with at a later date – or not at all.

He forced himself to calm his racing thoughts and gather some measure of control over himself. He was in a hospital room, he knew that for sure, so he could not be in any immediate danger. He convinced himself that in time what happened would come back to him and that it was just the shock of his injuries that had caused him to forget the reason behind those injuries. With his internal frustration and fear handled in his carefully crafted way he decided it was about time that he risked opening his eyes to see what the waking world had waiting for him.

It was not entirely surprising to him that his first image was that of a white ceiling, he had become accustomed to such a sight over the years. Still, even though he prepared for it, the white ceiling still depressed him slightly. The stillness in the air around him told him that he was alone and that, at least for the last few days, no one had been in this room save for himself.

_Was I in a coma? _he pondered to himself, knowing that until he came into contact with another person he would not have the answer to that question. He let out a deep, shuddering breath knowing that no one was here to see him let his defenses down. Now that his eyes were opened he felt drained, fatigued, absolutely exhausted. He didn't understand why. All evidence, from the air around him to the IVs stuck into the crook of his elbow and the top of his hand, indicated to him that he had been here, sleeping and resting, for enough time that he should not feel like this.

Yet he did. It was a puzzle that he needed to solve quickly, very quickly. He closed his eyes for a moment or two, took a few deep breaths, and focused his still-groggy mind as best he could. He sat himself up, propped on his elbows, and was shocked to discover that simply sitting up caused a sharp pain to shoot out from behind his Sharingan, through his brain to the back of his skull, and then traveled all the way down to the base of his spine. He inhaled sharply at the few seconds of rapid pain and felt the nausea overwhelm him. The room spun, his vision began to tunnel, and his breathing became rapid and heavy causing his ribs to scream out in agony.

The last thing he was conscious of was the taste of bile in the back of his throat before the warmth of unconsciousness wrapped itself around him once again.

* * *

_I can hear you. _Kakashi silently chuckled to himself at how the first conscious thought he had was that of the safety of his surroundings. So far he could determine one other person in the room that he occupied and nothing else. He had to succumb himself to the waiting game and hope that wherever he was he was safe. _At least this isn't the forest floor, so I moved up one step so far._

He felt a weird nauseous feeling growing in the pit of his stomach but he couldn't identify what in fact it was. It made him slightly uneasy though and as he waited out the time it would take for all his senses to start registering the outside world again he was able to pinpoint the feeling.

Déjà vu. It sat with him, heavy in his chest, and he couldn't shake the feeling of dread that washed over him. It startled him, to feel the emotions so heavily, and he tried to focus on his breathing instead. Locking away the emotions in a box, setting them up on a high shelf and leaving them for a time far off in the distance. He didn't need to sift through feelings and suspicions right now, he needed to figure out where he was and what his own physical condition was. From what he could remember, and it wasn't much, he had been having a rather difficult time negotiating a path through the forest as he made his way back to Konoha. There had been rain, lots of it, and a bitter cold. He had been injured, he knew that much, but remembering exactly what those memories were seemed like an impossibly elusive task at the moment.

It worried him but he pushed the worry aside to analyze later. He hoped it was the shock of the injuries that had stilted his normally-sharp mind and that as he healed the memories would return. Whether that would happen or not he did not know but he knew he wouldn't be able to find the answers right now.

_Figure out where you are! _If he could have Kakashi would've flinched at his own mind's chastising of his erratic thoughts and lack of focus but at the moment he was still unsure of his own body's condition and chose to keep himself completely still until he dared to do a mental analysis of his own.

His left ribs ached and bone fragments scratched together with each deep breath he dared to take. Taking slow and shallow breaths seemed to contain the pain to an easily bearable amount and so he made a mental note to change his breathing habits for the time being. He could move all his toes and fingers so he knew he wasn't paralyzed but there was an odd twinge of pressure that shot up his left arm every time he moved the fingers. That arm felt, not there, and for a moment panic reared up in Kakashi's mind as he immediately feared that his arm was entirely not there but then logic reminded him that he could move his left fingers so clearly that arm had to still be intact. He took in a shuddering breath and decided it was time to see exactly where he was.

White ceiling. He smirked to himself and let out the breath he didn't realize he was holding. Was he holding it in in preparation? In fear? In panic? He couldn't say and decided, rather abruptly, that he did not want to know.

He felt the other person in the room shift and realized that that other person was at least partially on his bed. He turned his eyes from the ceiling to see who was so very near to him in such a weakened state and let out a small, unexpected, chuckle.

The chuckle set his body into a racking fit of coughs and the person, who had clearly fallen asleep sitting in a chair beside the bed with his head cradled on his crossed arms on the bed itself, bolted awake at the sound of Kakashi's coughs. The other person stared at the Copy Nin seemingly shocked that Kakashi's eyes were not just opened but entirely aware and focused on the world outside the feverish hell-hole that the Jounin had unknowingly been trapped in for so very long.

The man took Kakashi's hand in his own and held it tightly, almost as if in fear. The act worried Kakashi greatly and he willed his body to stop coughing so he could ask the question that he was terrified to hear the answer too. The coughs took far longer to subside then Kakashi would have liked but the entire time he waited it out with his eyes locked onto the other man's and his hand gripped tightly in what he hoped was a sign of assurance but he felt was probably more like a sign of desperation.

"Asuma," Kakashi choked out as the hacking coughs began to lose their strength, "what happened?"

Asuma smiled down at his friend but Kakashi noticed the sadness that lingered in the back of his eyes and the way his mouth quivered ever-so-slightly. "We were hoping that you could tell us," he replied but his voice was oddly muted, an attempt to devoid it of any feeling but Kakashi saw past the small masks and knew that things were not going to be okay any time soon.

He saw it then, a flash of scenes playing rapidly against each other across his Sharingan's eye. It startled him to the point that he actually drew back from Asuma's presence and to Asuma it seemed that Kakashi would melt away into the bed itself if such a thing was possible. The images flared by in shades of red and black, blue and grey, swirling around each other and twisting into some intangible force that pulled deep at his heart making it seem to swell to the point that he feared his chest would burst. It was an aching pain that could only be brought on by seeing the teammates he had left with all those months ago dying in front of him all at once. In one twisted nightmare of a scene that highlighted every detail he failed to observe, every wrong judgement call he made, every calculated action that was a mistake, and ending with every death as a mangled form of each other. It almost tore a sob from his throat but he kept enough control of himself to still such a sign of weakness and instead he chose to close his eyes in order to close the curtain on the gruesome scene his mind had made and would surely, in time, force him to believe is true.

The Sharingan, however, would not be so easily deterred. The scene played again, and again, and again but now there was no outside world to distract him and keep at least some of his focus away from the despair it drew up through his veins. He called out to Asuma without realizing that he ever had but the man had his hand in a second again and Kakashi could hear him saying something but he didn't know what it was. Asuma's voice, however, was enough of a comfort for Kakashi that he did not need to hear the words he said but instead just focused on the familiar voice. Anchored himself to it and used it to beat back the memories, file them away in a locked safe, and store them up on that high shelf in his mind with all the others. He would deal with them later, he would look at them and filter through them and deal with all those emotions later. For now the energy it had required of him, though not real physical energy, to get those memories up on that top shelf drained his mind and sent him, once again, back into the ignorant bliss of unconsciousness.

* * *

Darkness. It surrounded him, suffocating him. He felt unable to breathe, unable to awaken himself from this terrible nightmare. He felt very much alone, forgotten, beaten down and exhausted. Something in the dark corners of his mind was whispering of failures he could not ignore nor fix in any way. What those failures were he could not say but something was telling him that they were grand failures, epic failures, failures worthy of song and story.

There was something murky in this darkness, a shade of black more gray than it should be. As time trudged on in a linear form he could not decipher there were flashes of colour, blues and reds, even a splash of white here and there. He swore he even saw a moment or two of pure moonlight cutting through the ever growing night that sat deep within his mind.

A child crumpled on a dirty cell floor, blood pooling around her innocent body from the slash in her throat that had stolen her life from her. The sight was gone as soon as he saw it, flashing by so fast he couldn't say if it was real or not. However, the guilt that choked his breath away told him how real that image was, or had been at one point in time.

A young man, missing his arm, sitting in a pool of his own blood as it left his body, taking his life with him. His own hand, covered in blood, tangled in brown hair stained with someone else's blood. He felt heat, as if from a fire, but saw no flames – only blackness with the sputtering moments of memories flashing on and off in front of him.

He could hear whispers around him, choking pleads for him to save their lives. Someone had wanted him to talk about something but he couldn't pinpoint any details. His muddled mind filled with confusing memories couldn't decipher truth from nightmares, fact from fiction. It all seemed so real and yet so very long ago.

His shoulders felt strained, pulling at sockets in a way they should not. His wrists bound together, behind his back, feet off the floor. He was hanging by his arms in a way that burned his shoulders, pulling his arms from his body by his own weight. Someone was talking to him but he didn't remember what they had said or what he had said in return but he was released from his restraints, falling hard against the floor below. He felt a needle being stabbed into his thigh and suddenly his already weakened strength fled him even more.

"Every day you do not talk," a voice said to him as he curled himself up into a fetal position to try and shut out this horrible reality, "another –"

He clamped his hands over his ears to silence the voice and screamed. It was a feral scream, bubbling up from the pit of his stomach and feeding off the ache in his chest. An animalistic and guttural sound that shocked even himself. Then the utter darkness came again, surrounding him and shutting out his life for him when he could no longer do it himself. He welcomed it and did not fight the comfort that it brought him but instead allowed himself to succumb to its warm embrace.

He had no idea that he had awakened, that his scream had been heard by others. Nor did he have any idea that the very core of his mental stability was being questioned by the ones that were trying to bring him back from his own fevered despair.

* * *

_It smells of antiseptic. _Kakashi smiled as the realization that he was in a hospital gripped his waking mind. It was a good sign, at least he had a made it to the step up from the forest floor so he couldn't complain about that.

There was someone else in the room, he could hear them breathing in slow, shallow breaths. He let his eyes slide open to be greeted with that familiar sight of a white ceiling. If he wasn't so grateful that he was alive he would've cursed the all-familiar sight but he was more content to relish in the fact that he had survived.

_But how? _The question bounced back and forth in Kakashi's mind but no matter how much he tried to focus on the memories he thought he should have there was nothing there. He was grasping at empty air in his mind where the answers he searched for should be. If he was a more open person he would've let out a sigh of frustration but instead he tried to turn his thoughts to other matters to distract him. He definitely needed a distraction at the moment.

_Cracked ribs. Burnt arm and left side. A healing dislocated shoulder. _Kakashi went through the injuries his pain told him he had as if he was checking off a grocery list. _I can move all my toes and fingers so I'm not paralyzed. It hurts to breathe, probably due to the cracked ribs. But why is my mind so muddled up?_

"Kakashi?"

His name was a whisper in the silent room and the Jounin turned his head in the direction of the voice to see who had spoken to him. He smiled at the sight of Asuma at the opened window across from his bed. He was smoking and clearly trying to keep that fact hidden.

"You're not allowed to smoke in here," Kakashi said but his voice sounded harsh to him, rough with disuse. _How long have I been here? _

Asuma laughed, a low and bellowing laugh that caught Kakashi by surprise and he let a small smile grow on his face at the sound his friend. After Asuma quieted down Kakashi took a rather shaking but deep breath and asked the question he desperately needed the answer to. "What happened?"

Asuma's eyes became dark, a hint of despair sitting in them, but his face remained cheerful. "We were hoping that you could tell us," he replied in barely above a whisper. "But it seems that –"

"We've had this conversation before, haven't we?" Kakashi interrupted suddenly as he propped himself up on his elbows to better look at Asuma. He had had a sudden feeling of déjà vu after Asuma had answered him and he felt like this had all occurred once already. "What is going on?"

Asuma was startled in the slight twinge of fear that Kakashi had allowed to enter his voice but choose not to point out his friend's lack of self-control at the moment. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair before flicking off the ash on his cigarette and throwing it out the window. Kakashi watched the smoke in the room thin out and float around the air until finally fading away into nothing.

"You've been in an out of a fevered coma for the last three months," Asuma finally answered. "And you're correct, we have had this conversation before but it seems the fever stole those memories from you as well as some other important memories of yours."

"Did I ever speak of what happened in the mission?" Kakashi asked but his voice was quiet and he had dropped his gaze to his lap after finally pushing himself into a full sitting position.

"When you were in the fever?" Asuma questioned to clarify and when Kakashi nodded he continued. "Not really."

"Not really?"

"There's nothing you said that helped us figure out what happened and what you did say well, I'd rather not repeat."

Kakashi's thoughts started racing, his mind searching for answers it could not find. Through clenched teeth he asked the question he was dreading the most, "Was anyone else found?"

Silence. It hung in the air thick and stifling. Kakashi suddenly found it hard to breathe, felt his heart constrict on itself. He closed his eyes and clenched the sheets of his hospital bed in balled fists. "You didn't find them because they're dead," he muttered. His eyes remained tightly shut and Asuma had a sinking feeling that his friend was trying to keep his tears at bay.

The silence stretched on for minutes and Asuma stood, arms crossed and leaning against the window sill, content to wait out Kakashi's internal struggle to bury the guilt and the grief deep in his mind. His patience was rewarded when Kakashi took one last deep breath before raising his eyes to meet Asuma's concerned face.

"Well I think it's only right that you tell me who found me so I can properly thank them," he said with a smile that had a hidden meaning behind it that Asuma could not quite figure out. "The last thing I can recall is being in the forest."

Asuma raised one eyebrow at that statement and its lack of detail but decided against pushing the matter of Kakashi's last memories for the time being. "I believe it was Neji," he answered. "He was travelling with his team for another mission and found you by nothing more than mere chance."

Asuma blinked and Kakashi was gone, leaving behind monitoring machines that began to frantically beep as they were suddenly left with nothing to monitor. It took a moment or two for him to realize what had happened and once he did his eyes drooped and he let out a heavy sigh. "Tsunade's going to kill me," he muttered as he lit another cigarette and turned to look out the window. "She's going to fucking kill me."


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two:**

His apartment had remained untouched. He stood in the bathroom, having had to break his way in through the window as his key was clearly somewhere else besides on him. He caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror but quickly turned away.

Kakashi had no desire to see his reflection. Seeing his reflection did nothing but confirm his continuing existence and sometimes he'd rather just let his own mind believe that he was just, _nothing_. A weapon in a body. A weapon with weaknesses but a weapon nonetheless. He was someone else's tool and he didn't mind that fact, it meant that he did not have to decide what he was on his own.

He made his way to his bedroom and as he opened his closet he noticed the thin film of dust that had settled on almost every surface of his small apartment. As he changed he began to wonder what the date actually was. How long had his last mission kept him from Konoha? How long had he been in the hospital? He did not know and the more he tried to figure it out the more the timeline in is mind of the last months warped around in circles. He could not decipher his muddled memories into any sort of semblance of a chronological sense. In truth, he was not entirely sure of what memories scattered about in his mind were reality or what ones were nothing more than fevered delusions.

He sat down on his bed, suddenly finding himself far more tired than he should be. His shirt was held loosely in his hand as he had only managed to put on pants before this strange exhaustion washed over him. He decided then that examining the remains of his injuries would probably be a good idea. Breathing was still difficult so he knew that his ribs were still on the mend. He held his left arm out in front of him to find that from his shoulder to about his mid forearm it was littered with misshaped scars and each scar sat in a slight crater of skin. It was clear that in the hospital it had received skin grafts to cover what had to have been burnt away skin. He couldn't remember his arm ever being burnt but clearly it had happened for the injuries told the tale.

His torso was still wrapped in bandages and as he slowly peeled them away he found that his left side also had a few new scars but these ones were much longer and deeper. Whatever technique or weapon that had injured his torso had been strong. The skin was still raw and new and thick scabs, with hints of infection bubbling beneath, were scattered all down his torso. He gently brushed his fingers against the tender areas of healing skin and he inhaled sharply at the pain that shot through his skin and into his muscles. The sudden inhale of air caused his lungs to expand just a little too much and his ribs cried out in discomfort. He closed his eyes and focused on breathing more shallow to still the pain. After a minute, or two, the uncomfortable pain faded away and he reached a level of numbness that he was all too familiar with.

He opened his eyes to find himself standing waist deep in a slowly freezing river. Somehow this place felt all too familiar but he couldn't pinpoint the reason why it did. He looked to the river's edge to find that the water was slowly becoming a thin layer of ice that was reaching out from the safety of the shore. He decided that he needed to get out of the river, he needed to get out of the river _now_. He started to walk towards the shore but found the river's water to have more resistance to it than it should and as he moved towards his destination he made the mistake of looking down towards the water for a brief moment.

It was red.

It was _blood_.

He froze and his breathing became rapid due to sense of panic he could not shake. Slowly he cupped his hands beneath the water's surface and brought them back up in the air. The blood slipped through the cracks between his fingers and dripped, thick and sticky, back into the river. He felt a heavy weight squeeze its way in-between his ribs and surround his heart. Suddenly each breath seemed to be a struggle and his heart felt as if it was being clenched in someone's fist, causing an ache that made him light-headed and black spots to dance about in his vision. He looked back to the river's edge to see that the ice was still slowly making his way towards him but that was not what caught his attention. Just off the shore there stood a small building, nothing more than one room, and he knew he needed to get to that building. He needed to get into that room. It was his mission.

He once again began to force his way through the thick blood this strange river contained and when he made it to the ice that was still trying to claw its way towards him a Chidori in his hand made quick work of it; destroying its attempt to trap him within the blood and Kakashi soon found himself standing on the shore or the river. His clothes were soaked with the life-giving liquid from the waist down and he was acutely aware of how very uncomfortable it was to have so much of other people's blood touching his skin. The smell of it was overwhelming and at that moment he dearly wished that he possessed some way of cutting off his senses because the smell was dragging up memories that were best left hidden away.

He took a shaking breath and turned the doorknob to what he knew was the entrance to _that _room.

The door shut softly behind him and he stood in the center of a perfectly squared room with shelves lining every part of the walls and a small skylight in the roof that let in the light of the moon. That light helped Kakashi see but it also caused strange shadows that hid certain shelves from sight. Each shelf contained jars and boxes of various shapes and sizes; perfectly labelled and at one point, perfectly organized. There had been a system, at one time long ago, where the shelves near the bottom held the memories that he thought he might one day be able to look at again and the highest shelves contained the memories that had the worst pain hidden within their depths. However, the jars and containers on the top shelves that were also hidden from the moonlight held the very worst of the worst. They held the memories that tainted him; the ones the proved his utter worthlessness, faults, and failures.

He had created this room and shuffled it into the far crevice of his mind when he had first killed another human being and there it had remained hidden ever since. It had worked exceptionally well for the majority of his life, keeping Kakashi the man and Kakashi the shinobi absolutely separate and their experiences contained within themselves. But over the last few years Kakashi had begun to notice how full the shelves had become. It had eventually become impossible to fit anything more on the highest and hidden shelves and he was forced to store memories on the lower shelves that should not have been there. As a result the pain forced its way through and into his daily life a little more than it should have. The guilt wrapped itself around his heart a little tighter than it would have if he had been able to find a place for those jars and boxes on the highest shelf. But there was no more room up there, none at all.

He stared at the shelves now and every single one was holding more than it should. Jars and boxes piled haphazardly against each other and certain containers were turned this way or that to be shoved in awkwardly between other jars and boxes.

However, there was a small box that was out of place even more so than the others and it quickly caught Kakashi's attention.

It sat in the middle of the room on the dusty floor. A square shaped box with rounded corners that had sides no bigger than two inches. Kakashi made his way towards it, stepping directly into the moonlight that pierced through the skylight, and kneeled down beside it. He picked it up careful, held it gingerly in the palm of his hand, and noticed that it was far too light for it to belong here. It had a hinged lid and with a small flicker of dread Kakashi opened it to see what was contained within in it.

It was empty.

Kakashi stared at the empty box for a time he did not care to count. There was something not right about this empty box. There was a memory that it was meant to contain for that was the only reason it would be here, in this room, waiting for him. What that memory was supposed to be Kakashi could not say but the fact that it was not there concerned him.

"My last mission," Kakashi muttered quietly but the still air in the room seemed to swallow his voice up and made it appear as if he hadn't spoken at all. The small box was supposed to contain the memory of his last mission, a rare fail in his long history of deadly yet mostly successful missions, but the fact that it was empty concerned him greatly. Without that memory safely stored within this box and placed on one of the overcrowded shelves within this room he could not say that he was in control any more.

He needed to be in control. He needed a way to drag this memory from the depths of his mind so that he could quickly shove it into this box and store it away to be dealt with at a future date, when time will have made the pain more bearable. With the memory scattered about his mind, left uncontained and uncontrolled, he could not say how he would react to it if it should bring itself forward to interrupt the order of his life outside the prison his mind could so easily become to him.

He suddenly stood up, his ribs protesting at the movement but he ignored the sharp pain, and turned to face the door. His hand still held the box and he stared at it, not knowing what to do with the object and its lack of contents. Where was that memory? Why was his mind hiding it from him to this extent? What was so terrible about that mission that his mind believed he could not face it for even the brief time it would take for him to hide it securely away in this room?

The room became enveloped in pure darkness and Kakashi looked up to the skylight as the sudden lack of light startled him. The sight he saw was something he had not expected. Outside the skylight he could not see the night sky, there was something in the way that blocked the light, and that something was a thick red liquid that was beginning to ooze its way through the edges of the wood in roof. As Kakashi brought his gaze back to within the room he saw the red liquid finding its way into the small room through the edges between the wood in the walls as well. He looked to the door to see it also coming in through the edges of the door frame. He watched in a still silence as the liquid quickly began to fill the room, coating the floor red and quickly rising as the seconds ticked by in Kakashi's mind.

It was the blood river from outside. Within moments it was at Kakashi's knees, and then his waist. As he stared at it he saw faces just underneath the surface but as he reached out to those faces they would shudder and disappear just as his hand would brush against them. He did not know who the faces within the blood were but somehow they seemed familiar to him, like he was supposed to know them. He had seen them all before but he didn't know where and he had no idea what had happened to these people.

Before he could figure out the mysteries behind what he was seeing the blood reached his chest and was quickly rising up to his neck. He felt like he should try to escape but he found that his body seemed unresponsive to his mind's orders for it to move. Such a realization should have concerned him but instead he simply closed his eyes and waited for what he knew was about to come for he did not fear it. Instead, the death that he knew was coming was a welcoming relief to his tired mind.

The blood rose to his neck and moments later it had climb its way above his head. He took in a deep breath, letting the blood fill his lungs and weigh his body down with its thick consistency. There was a moment of instinctive panic followed by a fear of the unknown world he would face beyond this ending but those feelings quickly dissolved away as the blood choked the air from his lungs.

Then there was nothing and for the first time in longer than Kakashi could recall he felt relief as his mind found rest in the darkness that the blood had filled his body and his mind with. The darkness he could only hope was the coming of death.

* * *

It was not a white ceiling. There was a part of Kakashi that was somewhat shocked by that but he quickly stilled his racing mind and did his best to focus on where he was. Within seconds he realized that the ceiling he was staring at was the ceiling of his very own bedroom.

He was not alone.

Kakashi turned his head to find the person whose presence he had just become aware of. Meeting his gaze was an exhausted Tsunade sitting in one of his kitchen chairs that she had clearly brought into his room in order to more comfortably wait for him to awaken.

"What are you doing here?" Kakashi asked and he almost winced at the sound of his own voice. He sounded tired and his voice had a broken tone to it that seemed to match what he was beginning to fear was his broken mind.

"I could ask the same of you," Tsunade replied as she stood up and made her way towards him. She gently took a hold of Kakashi's wrist and he knew that she was checking his pulse. "You were not discharged from the hospital."

"I was tired of the white ceiling."

Tsunade smiled, though it was a sad smile, at the Copy-Nin's lame excuse. "Your wounds are still infected, you still need to be monitored should your fever returns."

"I think I can tell whether my life is in danger or not by now, and it no longer is." Kakashi forced himself to sit up in his bed as he refused to give into the exhaustion that was telling him to return to his less than restful sleep. He tried to wrench his wrist from Tsunade's grip but the Hokage would not let go and Kakashi could not understand why.

"What happened out there Kakashi?" she asked, keeping her eyes locked on Kakashi's as she tried desperately to read his emotions but there seemed to be none there.

Kakashi was in no hurry to admit that he had no real recollection of his last mission so he simply let the silence stretch on. Tsunade's searching gaze unnerved him slightly but he pushed the feeling down and refused to let his gaze falter. After minutes of the still air surrounding the two shinobi Tsunade let out a sigh before releasing her grip on Kakashi's wrist and turning her focus to the two team pictures that sat on the ledge beside the bed.

"You really don't remember, do you?"

Kakashi leaned forward and tipped both pictures forward so that they laid, picture down, on the ledge. "That fact might be for the best," he answered.

Tsunade let out a short, strangled laugh. "You know as well as I that that is a lie."

Silence. Tsunade returned to her seat in the chair by the door. She waited patiently as Kakashi picked up the picture of his old Team 7 and kept his eye trained on it as he seemed to lose himself in his own thoughts. Nearly an hour later Kakashi's quiet voice cut through the air, "I will find out what happened."

Tsunade frowned, crossed her arms against her chest, and leaned the back of her head against the wall behind her to stare up at the ceiling. "I was afraid you would say that," she replied.

"But you knew I would, that's why you're here. You want to give a half-assed attempt to talk me out of it even though we both know that that isn't possible."

Tsunade made no response but instead simply stood up and as Kakashi turned his head to see what she was doing he saw emotions in her eyes that he could not decipher and it unnerved him. She said nothing and after a few moments of a shared gaze between the two she turned on her heel and swiftly left the apartment. As Kakashi listened to her footsteps fading away he heard his front door being slammed shut and he focused on the sound of her quick pace for as long as his ears were capable. As her exit finally faded out of the scope of his senses he returned his gaze to the picture of Team 7.

_Apprehension_.

The emotion that he had seen in Tsunade's eyes, the one that he could not name mixed in with the familiar ones he knew, was _apprehension_. She was nervous, maybe even a little afraid, but for what reason Kakashi did not know.

"Me," Kakashi whispered to no one but himself. The realization startled him and he let his eyes slid shut as he took in this knew knowledge. Tsunade was afraid of what would happen to him, to the famed Hatake Kakashi, because of his last mission. Remembering the Moon Room in his mind and the missing memory Kakashi knew, however unfortunately, that Tsunade had every right to be uncertain and a little fearful of what would happen to him; he was beginning to identify that something in his mind was not as it should be but it was something that he couldn't quite pinpoint just yet.

"Something happened," Kakashi was thinking out loud now, hoping to get his still erratic thoughts to settle down and make some sort of sense to him, "she knows something that she's not telling me." He opened his eyes and put the picture back in its rightful place on the ledge. "But why? What is Tsunade hiding from me?"

Kakashi knew that he had to search for the answer of what happened regardless of how much he would regret knowing it once he found it. There was no escape for him, he had to know and he had to suffer for it as he rightfully should. There was no other way. He had to suffer himself for the horrors he must have committed in order to keep the balance, keep the control, and keep the insanity he always had bubbling beneath the surface away from the sanity he was desperate to hold on to.


End file.
